Many Goldsboro residents woke up to more snow than they had ever seen in person Sunday, as more than a half-dozen inches blanketed the city between sunrise and sunset.

"I can't believe it snowed this much. I love it," declared 10-year-old Julia Frazier, just before she and her friends engaged in a snow angel competition off Ash Street. "You can't even see the ground."

Local children, though, were not the only ones enjoying the atypical weather.

Wesley Hunter and his wife, Becca, spent much of the afternoon walking through their neighborhood with a camera.

"We figured this might not happen again for years," Becca said, snapping a picture of a magnolia tree. "It really is gorgeous."

Hunter agreed.

"Around here, you have to enjoy snow while you can," he said, taking the camera from Becca to capture the image of a group of children tackling one another down the street. "Usually, when they tell you it's going to snow, nothing happens."

Less than a block away, Amy and Wade Evans only had one problem with the scene they awoke to.

"I wish we were in school so they would have canceled it," Amy said. "It's kind of a waste to have snow during Christmas break."

The 14-year-old's brother agreed.

"It sucks because this is when we're supposed to be out doing stuff at the mall ... and our mom said everything's closed," Wade said. "We can't even make it to our cousins' house."

By dark, the streets were far quieter than they had been for the hours just after the snow began falling.

But for some, nightfall only added to the quality of a snowball fight that they had been waging since they got out of bed.

Josh Wilson and Caroline Grant sat crouched behind some bushes along Evergreen Avenue, avoiding their respective parents' dinner bells just long enough to spring a sneak attack on Austin and Trey Faulk.

Trey, though, was prepared to retaliate.

Not long after the first ball hit him in the leg, he sprinted toward the location it was fired from, lunging onto his 12-year-old friend, Josh, and rubbing his face into the ground.

"He deserved it," Trey said, high-fiving Austin before the four laughed off the battle and called it a night. "And tomorrow, he'll really get it."